WHO Recommends Sugar Intake of Just 6 Teaspoons a Day

As part of its new sugar guidelines, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced recently that adults should slash their sugar intake to a maximum of six teaspoons a day, or just five percent of your total daily calories.

They also emphasized that children should as much as possible not be given soda as this contains copious amounts of sugar.

Sugar, by definition, includes honey, syrups and fruit juices, excluding those in fruits.

“Added sugar is a completely unnecessary part of our diets, contributing to obesity, type II diabetes and tooth decay,” said Graham McGregor, a cardiologist and health campaigner based in London, in an interview with dailymail.co.uk.

“Sugar, along with other risk factors, might certainly become the new tobacco in terms of public health action,” said Francesco Branca, director of nutrition for health and development at WHO. “The consumption of a single serving of sugar-sweetened soda might actually already exceed the limit for a child. So certainly the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages should be done with great care.”